HOW TO: Use a third party router on Vodafone VDSL

[jonnywombat]

On Firday afternoon Vodafone UK sent a corporate email telling their support team that they can now give out Broadband username and passwords.

I have now set up my own router, and here's what i did.

Step 1 Ring VF on 08080034515 and get your username and password. The support team member then emailed me my Log in info.

Step 2 Swap your router. Keep your VF router in case you ever get an issue and need tech support as they will not support your 3rd party device

Step 3 In your routers web interface access the WAN settings. Set connection type to PPPoE, enter username and password and leave all settings as default EXCEPT enable 802.1Q and set Vlan tag to 101.

Step 4 Save settings and apply. Your router should now connect to VF. Mine took a couple of minutes to get a connection and another couple from the router showing it was connected to actually being able to access the net

Step 5 After a few minutes the connection dropped, and it would not connect again. After investigation I was told this is to do with VF registering your router on there network. Hard reset your router. Power it down remove the power cord for 30 seconds and power back on.

Step 6 Enjoy

This is just based on my experience of setting up my router ASUS DSL-AC68U, YMMV. However the ASUS is syncd at 73.6meg, when the VF router syncd at 72.1 and I have noticed a marked improvment in performance.

HTH someone

Jonny

[Anonymous]

Any app that you use will show the speed at the narrowest bottleneck in the path.  In many cases this is not going to be the router, but if you are using 802.11n it'll be the WiFi!

The speed you see on the connection page of the modem is the connection speed between your modem/router and the OpenReach cabinet.  You then have the connection between your computer and the modem/router.  If you are connecting via 802.11n WiFi and the sync between your computer and the modem router (you can get this from the computer settings, it's nowhere in the router pages) is, for example, 72Mbps, you'll probably get a real speed of just half that, so roughly 36Mbps MAXIMUM!  So in that example, the bottleneck is the WiFi connection between your PC and the modem/router.  If that is the case and you want to use WiFi then the only solution is to get a better WiFi adapter for the PC, preferably one that uses 802.11ac.  If you do this you'll still need to have it set up, and the inbuilt WiFi disabled!

*While the VF router is a pile of poo, it's not a VF specific issue, rather a more common one to do with speed provision actually being better than that of penny-pinching hardware suppliers!

[hh28360]

So any advise on the choice between ASUS DSL AC88U and ASUS RT AC88U? What is better

[Anonymous]

To be honest, unless you are going to be installing some pretty exotic network adapters then both should be overkill!

On a personal note, my own experience of the Asus DSL-AC88U was not good!  I had one for a week as a loaner, from someone who could not get it to work properly!  It wouldn't work properly here either.  I think the maximum WiFi sync speed myself and it's owner ever got was just below 180Mbps.

As for my own current set up, I'm using the Vigor 130 modem, hooked up to an Asus RT-AC86U (master) meshed with my old RT-AC68U (slave), and the laptops in the house all have EDIMAX AC1200 MU-MIMO (USB2) WiFi mini-donlges.  Without those MU-MIMO WiFi dongles, even the RT-AC86U would be overkill!

[Sunshine12]

what are the reccomended dsl settings for tp link vr2800

there seems to be an array of different settings to choose from, at the moment i got it on vdsl2.  annex a.

sar unselected and bit swap unselected.

what are the optimum settings for dsl settings?

[Anonymous]

Realistically you should just be able to get your username and password (by email so tech can't misread it) and then follow the router setup wizard using either the "BT" settings or "Other VDSL.  It should then just autodetect pretty much everything!

In a VDSL connection, both bit-swapping and Segmentation and Reassembly are controlled by the cabinet, so even if you enable them it'll be up to the negotiation with the cabinet as to whether they are used or not.  If you have a good connection then trying to force SAR could disable G.INP which is often faster.  

Seriously though I'd use the defaults first and go through the wizard!

[Ianl49]

So I have been using tp-link vr1200 for about 3 weeks  now. A lot more stable..up and down speeds are generally a little higher than when using voda  router. Only dropouts have been when speed has dropped....in the evening  between 6.00 and 11.00... once download speed  dropped to about 7 mbps which kicked xbox off.... these speeds were like that in the evening for a few days but been better last few days.

So if I drop from about 30mbps in morning to below 10 mbps is that down to congestion  ???

And can anything be done voda end ??

[machare]

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@Ianl49 wrote:

So I have been using tp-link vr1200 for about 3 weeks  now. A lot more stable..up and down speeds are generally a little higher than when using voda  router. Only dropouts have been when speed has dropped....in the evening  between 6.00 and 11.00... once download speed  dropped to about 7 mbps which kicked xbox off.... these speeds were like that in the evening for a few days but been better last few days.

So if I drop from about 30mbps in morning to below 10 mbps is that down to congestion  ???

And can anything be done voda end ??

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If you are referring to the speed you can download data or displayed by a speed testing website, then likely the problem is congestion. Your router may well be able to display its connection speed which should remain stable.

You can complain about congestion but it may be that the only solution is to change ISP.  If you are not in the 1st 30m days of a contract you would need to persuade Vodafone to release you from the contract if you want to avoid any penalty charges.

[Ianl49]

Ok thanks. I wil try and do some testing over the next week. At certain times.. I'm about 3 months into contract.. 

What if I went to super fast 2 ? Would that help increase overall speeds ? But I dint think I can get much more than current superfast 1...

And if I jumped ship wouldn't the same be possible if they all use same cables etc..??

[happypedal69]

Sunshine 12 , did you manage to get your VR2800 set up on VF ? 

[Sunshine12]

yes vr2800 wrks fine for me, connected straight into wall.